Aquatic Invasive Species is an indicator of the Midwest Landscape Initiative’s (MLI) 2023 Midwest Conservation Blueprint. The Blueprint is a basemap of priority lands and waters for conservation across the Midwest consisting of over 20 social and environmental values representing diverse interests across society. This indicator was chosen as a targetable, important feature of the MLI goals that will be used to track conditions over time and prioritize areas for conservation. Indicators were defined through elicitation and prioritization exercises with federal and state participants. Criteria for the indicators includes 1) actionable, 2) measurable, 3) relevant to multiple groups across the region, and/or 4) representative of other social and/or environmental values. This indicator identifies the prevalence of plant and animal invasives in aquatic habitats within the Midwest Landscape. It prioritizes areas based on the number of invasive species records per acre of aquatic habitat for each HUC12 watershed. This indicator originates from the USGS Nonindigenous Aquatic Species database, the USGS Watershed Boundary Dataset, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Wetlands Inventory. To create this layer, MLI partners, members, and staff completed the following mapping steps: projected all input data to NAD83 (2011) UTM Zone 15N, displayed XY invasive species locations as points, joined the invasive species data with HUC12 watershed boundaries to obtain a count of invasive species found in each watershed, and joined water body boundaries with HUC12 watershed boundaries to obtain the area in acres of water bodies within each HUC12. Next, we calculated the number of invasives per acre of water body, and converted the polygons to a 30m raster. Then, we clipped the raster to the water body boundaries from the National Wetlands Inventory, and classified the clipped raster into the following categories: 1 – >0.75 aquatic invasives per acre of water body, 2 – 0.25-0.75 aquatic invasives per acre of water body, 3 – 0.006-0.25 aquatic invasives per acre of water body, 4 – 0.001-0.005 aquatic invasives per acre of water body, 5 – 0 aquatic invasive records. Finally, we removed highly altered areas using our Highly Altered Areas mask. For full mapping details, please refer to the Midwest Conservation Blueprint 2023 Development Process document.
